Country: Russia
Distance travelled:
Weather: Sunny

We rose early and made it to the breakfast buffet just after 7AM. We had booked it online with our tickets which gave us a saving of a few euro’s and meant our first priority in St Petersburg wouldn’t be to try and find something to eat. The buffet wasn’t the best I’ve ever encountered but was far from the worst and we managed to eat our fill. During one foray to the coffee machine, I overheard a familiar accent and paused to chat briefly to an Australian family. Upon my return I found poor Mark (Edit by Mark…umm I was OK 🙂 ) crowded in by a large group of Asian women. It always surprises me how different societies have different opinions on personal space.

After breakfast we headed up on deck for our first glimpse of Russia. The ferry took over an hour to make its way through the port district to its designated dock and we saw many neglected industrial buildings and a remarkable amount of scrap metal being loaded onto ships from several different international ports.

Disembarkation involved a climb down a long flight of stairs and into a hall where we all lined up to pass through immigration. The officials there were as scarily serious as I expected and neither of us made any attempt to be friendly beyond reasonable politeness. From the ferry terminal we took the obligatory tour run by St Peter Line, a requirement for the visa free entry. In actuality this was simply a courtesy shuttle between the terminal and three locations in the town centre conveniently near motels.

Getting off at Sokos Hotel Palace Bridge, we made our way through a noticeably quiet district to the banks of the Neva river and the Rostral Columns, obviously a tourist attraction since there were quite a few people happily snapping away with their cameras. A friendly Russian lady with a good grasp of English explained to us that if we held up a fifty ruble note beside the building we were photographing, the old Saint Petersburg Stock Exchange, we could line up where the engraving ended beside it. We couldn’t get the perspective right but it was great to know the rumoured rudeness of the Russian people was apparently incorrect.

From there we walked to the nearby Zoological Museum, I have a fascination with such things and I had read they had a Tasmanian Tiger on display. Since they have been extinct in Australia since the 1930’s this would be my best chance to see one, albeit dead, apart from a few minutes of film taken in that same decade. Unfortunately, after some time spent deciphering the signs, we found that it was closed on Tuesdays, something I would have known if I had done more research. Right next door however was the Kunstkammer, officially known as the Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography, the first museum in Russia and also one of the oldest museums in the world. It was on my to-do list as well so I dragged Mark in there instead.

This building housed what had started out as Peter the Greats’ collection of curiosities and had been expanded to what I felt was a world class exhibit, being partial to this glass cabinet style of museum. Although not everything was supplied with an English explanation, there was enough to satisfy us. The main draw, for both myself and apparently most other visitors however was the collection of human and animal anatomical specimens preserved in jars. These were bought from various scientists in Europe by the Russian tsar in an attempt to educate his people and banish superstition and fear. Most exhibited some form of birth defect such as a two headed calf and there was more human birth defects than I could have imagined. Since there was a No Photo policy here we had left our bags in the cloak room and the noticeable weight difference between my heavier backpack, containing our camera gear, and Marks’ with all our clothes was commented on by the attendant as we picked them up. We thought he seemed amused but we’ll never know what he really said.

We walked over the Palace Bridge, headed toward Palace Square but paused in a small garden adjoining the Winter Palace to eat a corn cob and an unidentified bread product while we watched one of the many street artists at work. While we were there two young men appeared with a trained monkey and a large parrot, allowing people to hold them for a fee and even taking a photo for them (they had a printer of some sort in a large case). Twice we watched them appear then swiftly disappear, leaving us to wonder about their probable lack of busking license.

Wandering around the corner to Palace Square and the Winter Palace, now the home of part of the State Hermitage Museum, apparently one of the largest museums in the world, we paused to take a few photos in the bright sun. The square was surprisingly quiet considering the tales of massive queues I have read about for this museum. We made our way through the streets of St Petersburg heading toward our motel, taking photos of buildings as they caught our eye such as the Singer House and the Russian Orthodox Cathedral of Our Lady of Kazan, with its long colonnaded arms to either side, converted to the Museum of the History of Religion and Atheism during the soviet years.

Eventually we reached the Hotel Columb at our 3pm check-in time, where we were staying for our two nights in St Petersburg. The receptionist, a very friendly lass with a reasonable grasp of English, was confused about our lack of visas and while we settled into our room she rang her boss to get further instructions. The room was lovely, clean and neat with everything we needed including a very efficient air conditioning system. The only drawback was that we had been given two single beds pushed together instead of a double. I never worked out why and since it wasn’t that important, we didn’t bother to make a fuss.

At about 6pm we headed out for dinner, deciding to eat at a canteen style place just around the corner. I had found a reference to it on the Trip Advisor website using the excellent wifi at Hotel Columb and unless we were in the wrong spot, it seemed to have changed names but was still the same style of eatery and we had lots of fun trying to identify the food on display and choosing what to eat. The staff were friendly and patient with our ignorance and dithering and made several suggestions via gesture.

We headed back toward what seemed to be the main tourist area of town, crossing the Blue Bridge, a 97.3 metre wide bridge that spans the Moika River. It is the widest bridge in Saint Petersburg and is as wide as the adjacent Isaac’s Square. It took us some time to realise we were crossing a bridge since it seemed to be undergoing some roadworks and those areas not covered in witches hats were being used as a carpark. Beyond the bridge-cum-carpark and St Isaac’s Square, loomed St Isaac’s Cathedral, the largest Orthodox basilica and the fourth largest cathedral in the world. For 300 rubles we got to climb the stairs to the viewing platform around the base of the dome. The stairs wound up an internal spiral staircase and then outside to another set which ran across the roof to the dome. As can be imagined, the view was impressive and we spent some time looking out over the city. I was counting all the church spires I could see and wishing I had the time to visit them all.

More suburban wanderings took us though a park with a statue of a gentleman with a camel seated at his feet, a famous explorer perhaps. Further on, I spent some time trying for a reasonable shot of a fountain but without a tripod and with the sun from just the wrong angle, it was more a lesson in camera settings than a successful photo shoot. We ended up at the Summer Garden, unfortunately closed by this time and, finally admitting we were both exhausted, we started heading back toward our room.

Our return path took us through the Field of Mars, over the Tripartite or Three-Arched Bridge from where we got our first view of the Cathedral of the Resurrection of Christ also known in English as the Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood and several other variations on this theme. This Church was built on the site where Tsar Alexander II was assassinated in 1881 and was finally finished in 1907. This was our first “onion dome” building and we were suitably impressed. The domes in particular were eye catching with spiraling blue and yellow stripes on most although there was at least one seemingly encased in gold. I had read that the walls and ceilings inside are completely covered in intricately detailed mosaics, over 7500 square metres, the main pictures being biblical scenes or figures with very fine patterned borders setting off each picture. Unfortunately due to the late hour it was closed so we didn’t get to go inside.

By 9pm we were back at Hotel Columb, worn out after a long day of sight seeing after an early start, hoping to recuperate some energies for tomorrow.